The Disapeared
by ShadoutCarver
Summary: A strange new case turns up for Harry, people are missing and the police don't care
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Disapeared 1/2  
**Author:** ShadoutCarver  
**Disclaimer:** Jim Butcher and used to be SciFi channel but they threw it away so :p  
**Book or TV verse:** TV  
**Summary: **A strange new case turns up for Harry, people are missing and the police don't care  
**Spoilers: **The entire series, just to be safe, though I don't know how much  
**Author's Notes**: I never thought I would bring an original character back. Oh well. Just goes to show. You don't have to have read "A Fine Spring Day" but it helps.

The drums started up one night. The rhythms were intoxicating. Harry Dresden stood stock still, listening so intently that he did not even hear me calling his name. When the drumbeats stopped he jerked as if he'd been slapped.

"Harry! Are you alright?"

"Yeah, sure Bob, what is it?"

"You burned your garlic bread again."

He muttered an oath.

"Well I tried to warn you."

He glared at me.

I sighed. "Goodnight, Harry." I retreated to the safety of my skull.

-,-,-,-

They showed up the next morning. An elderly woman, dark skinned and wrinkled accompanied by three young men. They were all dressed inadequately for the cold of a Chicago winter, and Harry ushered them in quickly.

"My name is Luiza Oliveira. We have come from Recife, Brasil" she said in heavily accented English.. I am the Mae do Santo of a terreiro in Recife."

Harry looked at her blankly.

"The Orixas sent us to you." she said as if it explained everything "you must help us."

She looked at my skull and said something in Portuguese. "Vem,aqui" and I felt myself being drawn out of my skull.

Harry hissed at me and I shrugged and pointed to Ms. Oliveira.

I think the old lady was trying to suppress a grin. The men weren't, they were highly amused, and not surprised in the least to see me emerge.

"How can we help you, Mi-lady?" I asked.

She turned serious.

"We need help to find a young man. He came here to study at the Universidade and he has disapeared. His family is desperate. They came here last week, but the police will do nothing to help them."

She produced a photograph of a widely smiling young man standing next to what must have been his parents.

"His name is Enrique Raposo. He is 24. His girlfriend says he has been missing for a month. She tried to get the police to look but they say he took drugs and run away to become illegal resident. He would not do this, Senhor Dresden, he did not do this. Something very bad has happened.

"We have money. She said, handing over an envelope. Many people gave us money, to come here and to hire you. The Orixas say you will find him."

Harry looked at me. I shrugged.

"I guess you will find him." I said. He looked like he wanted to glare at me but didn't dare.

The woman stood and the three men straightened.

"We are staying here." she handed Harry an address of a church a block away. "They have been very kind to us. They let us stay and also worship our way."

Well, that explained the drums.

She said goodbye and gestured to the three men to follow her, they went out into the cold.

Harry looked at me, confusion on his face.

"Candomble." I said.

"Bless you."

I rolled my eyes. "She's the spiritual leader of a congregation. Their religion is Candomble, a Brazilian religion which came from Africa with the slaves and adapted to the new world over the centuries. She can speak to the spirits, the 'Orixas'." I told him. "It's probably how she was able to call me out."

He stared at me more.

"Hang around for a few hundred years and you'll pick up a thing or two also."

Harry snorted and opened the envelope.

"Well at least rent is covered. I'm going to start with Lt. Murphy, I think I'll surprise her at the station, maybe buy her lunch."

"Good luck."

- - - -

Harry had been gone for fifteen minutes when I heard someone trying to get into the office. I emerged from my skull to find a figure entering the office. Someone had magicked the door in spite of the wards.

I recognized her. It was Melinda, a warden notwannabe I had met last spring. She sank to the floor with a whimper. Then she saw me.

"Where is Dresden?" she whispered. "I need help."

"He isn't here, I'm sorry."

Her coat was torn viciously, and I could see blood seeping out. I knelt hastily beside her. I could do nothing, nothing at all. I tried to touch her but of course, my hands simply went through her. I wanted to howl in frustration but I could not, not yet.

"Tell me what happened, child." I ordered.

She began to tell me, between gasps of pain she tried to hide.

"I got into vet school for the fall class." she began. "It's wonderful. I have a roommate, Ana, she's from Mexico." She gasped as a wave of pain shook her. "She went missing a few weeks ago. I've been trying to find her. The cops won't do a damned thing. I did a locater spell and wound up outside an old four story apartment building. It was all boarded up and fenced in. I tried to get in but there are demons guarding the place. I've been watching it from two weeks but couldn't see a way in."

She was close to crying. -- so was I.

"Today one of the demons saw me, I barely got away."

I tried again to touch her. She smiled at me and winced.

"I know you can't help me. I don't think you could have done anything anyway. Tell Mr. Dresden I think they are making third eye. I think that's why he took my roommate. Hes taken other foreign students too. A lot of them. He knows the cops won't do anything. He needs slave labor."

"He?" I asked.

"Wizard." she said. "Evil – not like you. Horrible and Evil."

I smiled at her.

She began to go limp, her eyes closing.

"Please stay, child"

She opened her eyes again and winced in pain.

The skinwalker was right when she said this was the worst torture of all. . Unable to do anything but watch helplessly as someone in pain is hurt or dying. She was dying and I could do nothing.

"I am so sorry, Melinda."

She shook her head a little and whispered, "no, don't be."

"Shhhh." I said. "Rest, child. Close your eyes and rest. I will watch over you until someone comes."

I watched her sink into death. I was weeping, knowing no one could see.

When the hand grabbed my shoulder I jumped to my feet and nearly dissolved.

I whirled to find Melinda, or to be more specific, her ghost, grinning at me.

"It's ok, Mr. Bainbridge. I'm ok now." She was smiling at me, and kept looking over her shoulder.

She took my hands in hers. They felt warm.

"Don't feel bad, please. My daddy is waiting for me. Grandma too."

I was still weeping. She hugged me suddenly and kissed my cheek and whispered into my ear. "They say I'll see you later." I hugged her back, and then she was gone.

I was still kneeling beside her body two hours later when Harry returned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** The Disapeared 2/2  
**Author:** ShadoutCarver  
**Disclaimer:** Jim Butcher and used to be SciFi channel but they threw it away so :p  
**Book or TV verse:** TV  
**Summary: **A strange new case turns up for Harry, people are missing and the police don't care  
**Spoilers: **The entire series, just to be safe, though I don't know how much  
**Author's Notes**: I never thought I would bring an original character back. Oh well. Just goes to show.

----

After the emergency personnel police were gone, I filled Harry in on what had happened. He had found a notebook in her pocket. He put on some gloves and took it out. She had taken notes on her progress in the search for her roommate and her observations of the old apartment building. He copied the contents and returned the notebook to her pocket before calling the police.

Lieutenant Murphy frowned at the notebook.

"Another student missing. What do those guys in missing persons do all day? Turn down cases?" She frowned. This makes no sense, what is 'third-eye'?" she asked. "Demons guarding the building? Was she mental?"

"This is something from my side of the street." said Dresden. "and you don't want to know who uses that drug. You can't use just anybody to make it, they have to have to be smart. I'm betting he's done this in other cities, and moves on before the number of missing grow too much for even the cops to notice."

Murphy groaned.

"And if we try to raid the place? What are we going to find?"

"Demons." Harry said.

"I don't want to hear that."

"Really large and nasty dogs."

"All right, Dresden. I'll see who I can put together to check this place out. I'll give you a call before we go." Murphy said as she turned to leave.

-.-.--.-.-.-.

She called the next morning.

Harry was getting ready, gathering what he would need. I stood watching him.

"Take me along, Dresden."

"What are you talking about, Bob?" Harry looked a bit frazzled.

"Take me with you, I want to be there." I insisted.

"You can't do anything."

I winced.

"I know. Take me with you."

"Bob, I don't have time for this. Get in your skull."

"Please, Harry. Take me with you."

"Thats a command, Bob. Now." He was getting angry.

I resisted the command. Defying a direct command was searing agony. Harry stared at me. I had always obeyed him before and he had never seen this. I could not hold out long, I had very little time.

"Please. Harry. Please." I managed to get out.

He hastily grabbed my skull from the desk.

"Alright, alright I'm taking you."

I surrendered to the pull of the command and felt cool relief as I dissolved and entered my skull.

-,-,-,--,

Much of what happened was muffled. I was inside the bag Harry had put me in. There was gunfire and yells, the heat of fire from Harry's hockey stick, the roar of demons and the screams of young people. I felt Harry running up stairs.

He took me out of the bag and put me on the floor as he broke into a room on what must have been the top floor. I emerged to see him facing off with another man, a wizard. Several young people were tied in a circle around him. Enrique among them.

The other wizard was sneering in true cartoon villain fashion. The kids were still, sitting with their eyes glazed over, faces contorted as if staring at something too horrific to turn away from. He had given them waking nightmares.

"You plan to fight me with a hockey stick and a ghost?" the man jeered. "Where are your police friends?"

"I told them not to come up." Harry spoke quietly, seething with anger. "They can't stop me from killing you that way."

The other man laughed and pointed his carved staff at Harry. He never even got to say anything. Harry pointed his hockey stick, power crackling through it, and directed all the force at the wizard. The evil bastard was dead before his staff left his hand.

I moved more quickly than that. I reached and grabbed the man's emerging spirit before he could get to hell. I held him with all my strength to keep him in this plane as a ghost. Then I transmitted agony. All the pent up grief at the death of Melinda, all the pain of being unable to help her, all the torment of resisting Harry's command. I transmitted all of it. The ghost of the wizard howled. I finally let him go and he disappeared, no doubt on his way to hell.

"BOB!"

Harry was calling me, horror in his voice. I looked around and saw the kids looking at me, some in fear, some with almost satisfaction. Enrique was smiling at me. Harry was just starring open mouthed.

"Get back in your skull before the cops get up here." he said softly. I obeyed.

That was at least two weeks ago. It's hard to tell time in here. I haven't come out since, and Harry hasn't called me out. I think he's ashamed of me. I do not know. I am not sorry. With all the misery he has caused that wizard deserved more than a moment's taste of my hell.


End file.
